Children of the Damned
by caseycoop
Summary: Collection of "The Vampire Diaries" related drabbles
1. Control

_**These Versions of Violence / Sometimes Subtle, Sometimes Clear / And the Ones That Go Unnoticed / Still Leave Their Mark Once Disappeared**_

**Caroline Forbes and Damon Salvatore**

"_Did he hurt you?" _Elena had grabbed at the shawl covered Caroline's bare back and the clear bite marks that Damon had left earlier, revealing the angry marks.

The blonde had snapped back, snatching the shawl back from Elena, rearranging it around her shoulders again so no one else would see the marks. "_He…He didn't mean to hurt me." _She had told her friend with a confidence she wasn't aware that she had.

Elena stared at her friend suspiciously, wondering if she should believe her or not, and Caroline stalked away before she could find out Elena's response. She didn't need the wrath of Damon coming down on her if he thought that she had crossed him in any way.

"_Why are you being like this? I'm so good to you…"  
"You are the only stupid thing here. And shallow. And…useless…"_

The words cut into her like a knife, sharper than his teeth ever could. The sneer to his lips as he spat out the words reminded her that to him, she was just a toy; a shiny toy for him to play with and then disregard when he was bored.

How many times, since she had taken him home with her, had he ignored her to turn around a couple of hours later to plant small kisses down her neck, sweet talking her into doing something for him?

The bite marks would fade, eventually. She knew that already, faint scars already the only reminders of what she had so far endured and one day no one would be able to tell that she had once been bitten.

_Stupid. Shallow. Useless. _She couldn't escape his taunts.

Even after she had finally escaped his grasp, his voice haunted her – whispering to her in the night that she was useless, that she was stupid.

When she woke up in the hospital alone, she felt different. She felt out of control and crazed – but she knew that no one could hurt her. No one could hurt anymore.

Until Damon grabbed her, his fingers digging in to the tender flesh of her arms, as he sneered at her again; reminding her that her existence was to remain a secret. She flinched and turned her head, avoiding the eyes that had once compelled her.

_Stupid. Shallow. Useless. _He still had control over her.


	2. He Never Expected

_**Who'd have thought someone like you could love me? You're the last thing my heart expected**_

**Alaric Saltzman/Jenna Sommers (+ Isobel Flemming-Saltzman)**

Alaric had fallen for Isobel's dark and exotic looks; her enthusiasm in the paranormal that had eventually became her downfall. He admired her dedication to her studies, and humored her when she wanted to research some more of the outlandish myths. _Who believed in vampires anymore?_

His obsession with the paranormal, with the creature that had taken his wife, halted any chances he had of moving on, of finding someone else; he didn't even want to find someone else. He just wanted to find _him_ and avenge his wife's death.

He wasn't meant to find anyone when he landed in Mystic Falls, Virginia; a name that appeared countless times in Isobel's research; scribbled onto the paper in her frantic handwriting.

His job as the high school history teacher was only meant to be a supplement to his hunt, everyone needed money; he hadn't counted on one of his students introducing him to his Aunt when they were all in the Grill one night.

Her smile and laughter wasn't meant to completely brighten up the darkness that had settled around him a long time ago.

Her oblivion to the world that she was surrounded by was a refreshing breath of air; and while her niece and nephew mixed themselves in with vampires and witches and werewolves, while he risked his life alongside them, she was ready for a night in with a big bowl of popcorn and a scary movie.

Jenna and Isobel were the polar opposites of each other, day and night but when the blonde found herself telling her boyfriend that she loved him, he realized just how easy it was to say the words back; just how much he loved her too.


	3. What We Can't Have

_**A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing that emptiness**_

**Caroline Forbes**

For years _afterwards_, Caroline tried to keep her life as normal as possible; considering just how un-normal it actually was. She tried to forget while her family and friends were growing old and would eventually face their own mortality, she would remain the seventeen year old beauty queen.

When she had to finally move away from Mystic Falls, she was allegedly twenty one years old and people were beginning to notice that she hadn't aged a day. She packed up her life, told her mother and the blissfully ignorant to the supernatural world that she was moving to Chicago for university, and then fled to the large city in the Midwest where she could begin her life over again.

Damon came to visit her six months later, when he finally left Mystic Falls. He and Stefan had been pushing their limits by staying in the one place for so long and it was time to disappear again before the whisperings of 1864 could resurface.

He tsk-ed in slight disapproval as he looked around her apartment at the photos of her mother and her father, of Bonnie and Elena and Caroline in high school, of Matt and of Tyler. His lips formed a thin smirk as he noticed all the small decorations she had collected to make the apartment a home.

"_What?" _She finally snapped at him, unable to take any more of his judgement. If he wanted to play a twisted parental role in her life, then he could tell her what she was doing wrong instead of letting her struggle through it herself.

"Nothing," he smiled at her cheekily and she considered throttling him; she could probably take him on. "It's just, you sure you want all of this here?"

"Stefan…Stefan told me to try and not let go of my humanity, that stability was important." She took a deep breath as she recalled what the other Salvatore brother had told her before she left Mystic Falls; before he had disappeared without a word to _anyone_.

"My brother also kept a photo hidden away for one hundred and forty five years, and look where he is now." He pointed out; picking up a framed photo of herself and Elena at the last Miss Mystic Falls pageant they both participated in.

But of course Damon didn't stick around Chicago, so Caroline kept the last shreds of familiarity in her life.

She was twenty five when she had to move again, sooner than she thought, because the senile woman that lived the floor above her was beginning to talk about Caroline _finding the fountain of youth, _and how the pretty young girl didn't look a day over eighteen.

She left pretty fast actually, had everything packed and ready to go in one night.

She tried not to let the usurping isolation bring her down when she became even more of an anonymous face in the bright lights of New York City.

Damon appeared again, reluctantly bringing a still-human Elena with him; and his disapproval was glaringly obvious as she let them into her apartment. The photos were still up, the decorations were still there.

Caroline wants to cling on Elena and never let her out of the apartment again. She laughs bitterly when she remembered feeling alone in high school, because that was nothing compared to what she goes through now. She can't even begin to entertain the thought of maintaining a long term relationship, or even friendship, because what is she going to tell them? When they get laugh lines and eventually grey hairs, how is she meant to explain her looks?

How is she meant to explain the interesting choice of contents in her fridge?

It might be difficult, but she knows in the long run that being alone is for the best.

Slowly, the decorations get boxed up and put away in storage. She justifies this simply as easier considering how often she's moving; they're still there, they're just in a safe spot where she can't lose anything.

The photos start to disappear when she's in England. _Her apartment's too small for them all_, she begins to justify everything all over again. _They're only going into photo albums. _It's easier this way, especially when she invites people into her apartment. After all, she hasn't aged a day since some of those photos have been taken.

Damon's silent the next time he tracks her down, to make sure she's still alive for lack of a better word. She's spread out on her couch, flipping through a fashion magazine, only half-listening to the music coming out of her radio.

He looks around at the apartment when she refuses to acknowledge his presence in her home. There are no personal effects on display, nothing except for the bare furniture and the small collection of fashion magazines thrown around on the coffee table.

He pushes her feet off the couch, collapsing down next to her as she turns another page.

"_It's easier this way_," he promises her.

"_This isn't a real life,_" she mumbles back.


	4. More Than Just a Pretty Face

_**Just another pretty piece, I was difficult to see, but you picked me  
**_**Caroline Forbes/Matt Donovan**

All she was was just a small town beauty queen, headed for a quiet future as a housewife, organising societal events for the small knit country town that she had called home since birth; that she'd probably call home until her death.

The high school's cheerleading captain, student council vice president, head of the prom committee, she was the one that could be counted on to lead anything, it was what she did; but no one saw her for more than just a pretty face.

She could single-handedly organise the town's clean-up campaign, but she was still the insecure, neurotic control freak that she'd always been.

She could smile and flirt her way through the junior (and senior) class of Mystic Falls High School, but all the horny teenage boys saw was a pretty smile and long blonde hair. All their girlfriends would see was another threat.

The first night that Matt stayed with her, after she had drunk way too much at the Grill after talking to Damon and he had to carry her home, was the first time she realised in her drunken stupor that maybe everything wasn't completely hopeless after all.

That maybe there was someone out there who could see past the superficial and would actually stay around long enough to learn more about her; to learn that she wasn't 'kiddie pool' shallow.

She didn't know what their relationship was going to turn into. He still wasn't completely over Elena, even she could see that. He wouldn't define their relationship in any certain terms or labels, no matter how many times she tried to talk to him about it.

But he was hers. Even when he didn't want to talk about _them_, he was hers. She'd smile and laugh and cuddle up against him while they watched a movie on his couch; or in her bed late at night after her mother had fallen asleep.

He'd sling his arm around her and pull her close and she felt safe and wanted.

"_Even though, today, I wanted to throttle you, I'm pretty sure that I'm in love with you."_

He climbs through her bedroom window, startling her, after they'd spent the day arguing. She had been prepared for a weekend curled up underneath the covers of her bed with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and the complete first season of Jersey Shore.

She was ready to shut her mind down to _everything _and forget about the world that existed outside her bedroom because boys were too frustrating and impossible to work out.

She hadn't been ready for Matt to climb through her window.

Then for the first time in her life, someone was picking _her_. She wasn't second best, she wasn't just a pretty smile; he had seen past all that and he was loving _her._


End file.
